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Hi All,
There was some carnage tonight!! The Germans were on a balloon busting mission in October of 1918. Four huns took to the air — John B in his Fokker D.VIII, Stephen E in a Fokker D.VII (160-HC), Andy P in a Pfalz D.XII and Chris O in a Hannover CL.IIIa. The balloon was at 600′, with four AA and five MGs in defense, along with three British Camels. The Camel jockeys were Lynn H (with 124 missions and 47 kills!), Graham C (28 missions and 11 kills) and Carl F (8 / 2).
The allies had terrible initiative rolls for the first three turns, with all three of them moving first in two of the turns, and two of them first in the other. They kept diving down to keep away from the Germans, allowing the Germans to close on the balloon. On turn 4 the huns pounced on the balloon, except for Stephen, who stayed up to dogfight and drew attacks from Graham and Lynn. They pounded him for 16 hits but Stephen stuck in there, with Graham on his tail. The other three Germans exploded the balloon, and Chris’ observer ultimately received credit for the kill.
On turn five the Germans regrouped and boxed up. Graham took a bottom on Stephen, hitting him 7 more times. John swooped in on Graham but missed, and Lynn, coming to his wingman’s defense, hit John and put a slug in his pilot. It was a critical wound, with the pilot passing out, crashing and dying. It was one of John’s original pilots from 1978, but he only had 4 missions! Not a lot of Fokker D.VIII missions in Minnesota, I guess. Kill #1 for Lynn.
Turn 6 saw the Germans box up again, with Carl and Graham taking side shots on Stephen to minimize the defensive fire. Graham hit 8 more times, along with a few from Carl. Lynn got a good tail shot at Andy, and shot him up. Stephen still survived that onslaught, but he’d had enough and declared escape. The numbers weren’t his friend though, and he was moving early going into turn 7.
Graham rolled lower than Carl and Lynn for initiative on turn 7, and they both targeted Stephen. Graham lined up on Andy’s tail, who was trying to shoot Lynn off of Stephen. Andy hit Lynn several times, and Graham put a good burst into Andy (7 hits). Carl and Lynn both hit Stephen from 300′, sawing off Stephen’s left wing, and sending Stephen’s experienced pilot (Hans Offdagutz, 18/1) to his demise. Lynn scored the only hits on the left wing, and got Kill #2. Stephen had taken 47 total hits, including 22 from Graham, 16 from Lynn and 9 from Carl.
On turn 8 the remaining two Germans tried to beat a retreat, with Andy tailing Lynn and Graham tailing Andy. (Chris dove away and would eventually avoid the Camels for 3 turns, making good his escape.) Both tail attempts failed, but Graham stuck close to Andy, giving him good position if he won numbers, which he did on turn 9. Graham got back on Andy’s tail, hitting him six times but jamming a gun. He hung back a bit to give himself more cards, and Andy was now down at 300′.
Graham tailed him successfully on turn 10, moving back to 250′, and hitting him 4 more times. Unbeknownst to the Camels, Andy was down to a couple of hits left in each of a couple of locations. Graham was 250′ back with a double ace, and Andy was only at 350′.
On turn 11, with Graham tailing, Andy lost numbers to Lynn. He chose a dive card from 350′, automatically crashing. (Graham actually tailed successfully — he had enough cards that he covered anything Andy could do, and had one card left to pick, with which he took the dive! Needless to say he didn’t execute the dive!) Andy survived the wreck, but his pilot was made a POW, and Graham scored a kill.
All three Camels made it back to base, with Lynn’s pilot scoring his 48th and 49th kills, and Graham’s his 12th. Andy was made POW, while both John and Stephen were KIA. Chris was the only German to make it back safely, and his observer scored the balloon kill. I’m sure he reported a successful mission!!
That’s all for tonight. I won’t be on for the next several game nights, so someone else will need to run the Skype session. Have fun!
Graham
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